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How has the USA PATRIOT Act Affected You?
wetdogjp asks: "October 26th, 2004 marked the third anniversary of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (or USA PATRIOT Act, as it is more commonly known). While the Slashdot crowd can certainly muster the enthusiasm to debate its pro's and con's, I'd like to know: How has the USA PATRIOT Act affected you, personally? How has it interfered with your personal and professional life? Has this act influenced your Presidential vote?"
I used to be apathetic about government and politics. Uniniterested in 'what those wanks in Washington were doing'. The first inkling of a problem was the CDA (Communications Decency Act), which was scary, but okay, some bad legistlation is bound to happen.
:)
Then Bush and his cronies moved in, and anything even approaching preservation of civil liberties, the Constitution, or... okay, lets be honest, our dignity... went totally out the window in pursuit of idealism and Empire building.
I'm ashamed that the coutnry I live in could put a man like George Bush in power, could support a congress that would ratify such onerous legislation as the Patriot Act, and, what's worse, even consider re-electing this man. (As I type this, the US elections are still undecided).
More commentary on my blog, I'm done ranting here.
Event Management Solutions : http://www.stonekeep.com/
Has this act influenced your Presidential vote?
This is simple. Why I voted for Kerry:
1) President Bush empowered himself to take the civil liberties away from US Citizens. The last president I remember really hacked away at rights explicitly stated in the US Constitution was John Adams (correct me if I'm wrong). Bush claims that it will only be used on terrorists, but merely being accused of being one automatically strips you of your civil liberties. Declared guilty before proven innocent. Even Timothy McVeigh still received a lawyer and a trial.
2) President Bush guarded nothing in Baghdad except the oil refinery. I truly believed up until I read about this that "liberating" Iraq was not because of the oil, but because Saddam was hiding something up his sleeve. I tried to convince everyone I could in Egypt that it wasn't about the oil.
Well, I work at a Canadian bank and we've had to stop outsourcing alot of our contingency server hosting to the US. Given certain provisions and interpretations of the PATRIOT act, we cannot guarantee privacy of personal data to our customers -- as we must do as indicated by Canadian law. So now instead of having a primary datacentre in Toronto and a backup in South Carolina, we're moving everything out west to Alberta. We still run servers and call centres in the US, but all the data warehousing is now 100% Canadian.
So, if you work in IT, I suspect alot of people have been indirectly affected but don't realise it. I doubt you'll have SWAT teams bursting into your house and seizing your home PC due to using Kazaa, but the aggregate affect over the entire economy is tough to measure.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Can I move up there with you?
Seriously, I am completely convinced this is entirely rigged. I've been all over the US in the last couple years, and I have met so few people who view the last four years in a positive light.
Not to mention the number of electronic voting devies used in this election, ALL (as far as I know) which have been *proven* to have hackable and faulty security. How scary is that?
We also have a system here that does not allow the majority to vote for president (majority vote in 2000 was for the other candidate who was cheated out of office).
The saddest thing of all is that, if there are really this many that prefer our current president, not many of them seem to understand that our pestering of other nations is what results in terrorism, and we ourselves are to blame. It really is so confusing and sad to see your fellow humans this way.
Oh, and it's AFFECTED, not EFFECTED.
/sarcasm
Let's see... They gave me shit about my laser pointer at the SFO airport when the PNS airport did not...
I couldn't take my keychain knife with me on the plane anymore... and I know that if I ever use a library, it will GREATLY concern me that the FBI can find out what I checked out now with one less hoop to jump through than before.
Damn you Ashcroft and Bush!
This will be tagged as flamebait.
I had a sucky sig.
I was affected by the Patriot Act. I work for a major bank and we added fields to all of our customer data tables to accomodate new regulations from the Patriot Act. It gave me something to do for a few weeks.
A couple of months ago, I went into a bank to sign up for a checking account. Since I am under 18, my parent's were going to be co-signers of the checking account with me. I was told that I wouldn't be able to open an account without a state ID. At the time, I didn't have a state ID or driver's license, and so I was promptly told that I couln't open an account. I know most people have driver's licenses so it's not a problem for them, but for people under 18, it is another hurdle.
At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he (Bush Sr.) was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or accounting.
So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism.
- Osama bin Ladin
Then you may think twice about those powers you so casually dismiss.
Method of processing duck feet
The main reason you don't hear anything is because it is one of the provisions of the patriot act.
You are not allowed to discuss any charges brought against you. You can be held without council. You can be held indefinately.
Why do you think the ACLU/EFF couldn't talk about their case against the Patriot Act?
If your civil liberties die in a country with no one around to defend it, do you make a sound?
~X~
"You have rights....then you have wrongs."
~X~
My friend was taken away in about 5 minutes to some secret underground interrogation room, and didn't come back for about 3 hours.
I was questioned at the scene about any knowledge I had about blank checks and my friend's connection to terrorist organizations.
The police asked to search my car, and when I refused, I was suddenly surrounded by members of the SWAT team, dogs, machine guns and all.
They searched my car with me on the ground at gun point (during rush hour in downtown DC, no less!), and needless to say, found no fake checks.
When all was said and done, the man in charge of the Anti-Terrorism Task Force/Secret Service Police shook my hand and thanked me for doing a great service to America, and a great service for freedom. My pleasure.
Apparently, someone with a grudge against my friend had called a contact at the treasury dept. and told him that we were all involved in a money laundering scheme. They take those threats pretty seriously.
Oh yeah, they also stole the chinese food I had brought home for lunch :(
No heaven can heaven be, if my horse isn't there to welcome me.
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
That's easy.
All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
Herman Goering
Nuremberg prison, 18 April 1946
In addition:
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Listening to Gearge Bush is like listening to the NAZI's of Germany circa 1939 and not paying ittention to our founding fathers.
Though the Patriot Act specifically hasn't affected me in any way I realize, the mentality the War on Terror brought to law enforcement, manifested in the Patriot Act, has.
In the summer of 2002 my family was in the middle of selling a house, and potential buyers were often touring, checking things out.
One couple with a digital camera was photographing the interior when they opened my room closet and discovered my trusty potato gun. They decided it was a device of terror, photgraphed it, and forwarded the images to the state police when they got home. My family and I didn't know until the next day, when some serious looking dudes showed up.
Luckily the police were relatively reasonable and left without incident, but the whole thing was disconcerting.
I came to realize that I feared the self-deputized public more than any law they could come up with in Washington. Whenever the terror level goes up, and citizens are told to "be watchful," what does that really mean? Eyeball dark-skinned people with foreign-looking head-dress, or poke around someone's house sneaking out pictures to send to the police?
I'll give our leadership the benefit of the doubt, and presume that they're not entirely aware of the shift in public thought they're sponsoring. I couldn't propose a much better way of handling it all, either. I just know that as an individual, living in America after 9/11, it's starting to be weird and suck and I hope that it doesn't get any worse.
Will this really affect me in any meaningful way? Probably not. However it's still a little weird.
Yes... what about those cells.
Could you list them? Because there *ARE NONE*.
You need to read some history books. The allies created the state of Israel after WWII. They took a portion of Palestinian land and gave it to the Jewish people fleeing Germany.
Israel and Palestine have been at war for half a century. They both commit terrorist acts against one another, but we *support* Israel! This is why you are considered an enemy by those terrorist cells. We support the very acts we so vehemently object to, every day.
You may not agree with Usama's tactics. You may not agree with his ideals. You may think he is a terrible person. But he is a very intelligent person. He was trained by our CIA, and he has a degree in civil engineering. And once you cut through the fundamentalist islamic bullshit, he has a point.
Our support for specific middle eastern countries is based on our current need for oil. If we remove our dependancy on foreign oil, we are no longer required to support people in the middle east. Once you do that, you won't have a 'terrorist threat' because you won't be funding attacks on them.
The enemy of my enemy is my ally. And the ally of my enemy is my enemy. No?
After the patriot act passed, the ISP I was working for had a large increase in requests for information, from various official sources. Pulling the requested information from our logs took many man-hours, and several tens of thousands of dollars worth of dedicated hardware. (We logged a lot of information, on the order of gigabytes per hour)
Thats debatable. The language used in the constitution (and more importantly, the bill of rights) imply that most rights apply to non-citizens.
Most importantly regarding the current treatment of non-citizen "terrorists":
Amendment V : No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI : In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
Amendment XIV Section 1 : All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
You'll note that at other points in the Constitution and its amendments, when it means citizen, it SAYS citizen.
The US Patriot Act has caused me to fear my government even more than normal. Now, when I work on my projects, even if I am not actually a terrorist, I worry that I may be labled as such. Is this the way a law abiding citizen should feel at home?
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Your only hope is to have it shot down in the Supreme Court now. Both parties have been pushing for this for some time. The People had already spoken. We consistently and emphatically told them 'hell no'. Three strikes, you're out, right? Oh no! Now the world's a different place with all the terrorists running about! Privacy is great an all, but the founding fathers could hardly anticipate terrorism! Get with the program you whining liberal pinkos! Now the FBI can sign their own warrant, sneak into your home, plant bugs and video cameras, and basically make Amendment 4 null and void.
May I make one suggestion; Would you be so kind as to change your name from FBI to KGB and give up any pretense? Thanks.
The PATRIOT Act has affected me quite personally.
I'm a high school senior. This summer, I was in Ithaca visiting Cornell. After our visit to the campus, we decided to do some exploring of the area, because it's really quite lonely up there but also quite quaint. We figured we could find a cute little town down by the lake there. We decided to check out Aurora on Route 90.
Well, we turned down another road by accident. It was unmarked and at a 10% grade downhill. We wound up at the lake, certainly, but not in Aurora. We found ourselves at a power plant. Obviously, we knew we were in the wrong place, so we stopped.
My dad suggested I get out of the car and take some pictures. The sun was setting and the area was terribly scenic. At this time, another car, a dark sedan that had been following us down the road, made a quick turnaround. I proceeded to get out of the car and take some pictures. My dad called me back, so I ran back to the car, and we drove off. That was at 7:38 pm.
Fast forward to 11pm. My family is at the hotel, and my sister and I are trying to go to sleep. For reference, we have two adjoining rooms, one for my parents and one for me and my sister. Somebody bangs on my parents' door saying he's with the state police. My sister and I heard it and we assumed it was a joke.
It wasn't a joke at all. The New York State Police really came into my parents' room and started questioning them. My sister and I had sort of gotten up and were listening through the door. Keep in mind that at this time I'm in my pajamas and without my contacts. The officers notice someone next door, and we come into my parents' room.
The State Police were investigating a possible terrorist threat: me.
My dad had been talking for me, but there were inconsistencies in his story. Obviously. He wasn't the one taking the pictures after all. I didn't remember exactly what happened, as in which picture I took in what order, because it wasn't as if I thought I would need to know that.
THe officers want to see my camera, so my dad goes and gets it from the car. I'm in tears, because here I am, half blind and not dressed, being accused of being a TERRORIST.
I showed them my camera, and they thought it was digital, but it's not; it only appears so because it's got a large LCD status display on the back. (Thank goodness I stick to film, because I don't want to think about what might've happened to me had it been a digital camera.)
The entire scene at the plant had been recorded by a security camera, and the way the other car was there coupled by how I ran back to the car and how quickly my dad turned around made our behavior seem very suspicious.
The police told me that that power plant supplies one-sixteenth of the power to the East Coast and that knocking it out would leave millions without power for months. My case was especially worsened by the fact that there had been a legitimate threat against another area plant that same day. They told us we were lucky they found us: they'd had to stop a bulletin going out to the whole East Coast looking for our car. If they hadn't, the next day we would have been surrounded by 20 state police cars with guns to our heads. If that's not a threat, I don't know what is.
They wanted my film. I used up the last shot on the roll just by taking a picture of the floor, and then I handed the film over. The fact that I had fourth amendment rights never occurred to me. I was quite frankly scared out of my mind. Other people I've told said they would have refused, but my life had just been threatened. I think that's the part they don't get.
So they took my film and left. I couldn't sleep for quite a while and was quite visibly upset through the next day.
I'm still paranoid about police.
It took me quite some time to realize that I had done nothing wrong. There were no signs of warning or anything near the power plant. No "Authoriz
* not downloading porn because I know they will use it against me
* not speaking my mind in email because I know they intercept emails-- who heads Level (3), the first Iraqi administrator
* I'm a mail admin: never deleting a mail log at work because I don't want to lable a computer dfw2snfbi01... wait they're windows, dfw2wnfbi01
* secure delete and shred are my friends
* regretting renting Fareinheit 9/11, but because of the content or the message, but because I think my name will be thrown into some database
* actually thinking about trying to get an outsourced job in Ireland or Canada
* really pissed when I realized that my vote has never counted since I've voted (for the last 20 years)
* amazed at my level of paranoia
* deleting all viloent refereces
* finally getting an answer to the question I asked my German friend 20 years ago, "How could have the people supported Hitler, it doesn't make sense"
* renaming USA to Branch Americans, and moving to Waco.
So to summarize:
The PATRIOT Act has likely cost this country untold numbers of jobs. EVERY country that does [customer sensitive] business with the US has most likely pulled thier resources out of this country, in order to comply with their own laws.
So, basically, the PATRIOT Act has affected me both directly and indirectly. However, I can't say how it's affected me directly just yet because I haven't hit the "arrest him now" threshold.
If I ever do, I won't know about it and neither will you because they don't have to have a reason anymore.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
After a move to an apartment, I decided to change my address with my banks, etc. This apparently triggered something which froze all my accounts. I took so long to straighten out that I had to borrow money from friends to make my payments and to live. My broker told me this was a new government requirement from the Patriot Act.
Thing is, I was freaked out that all the freedom we claim to have in this country was suddenly pulled out from under me. Most people don't think they could ever be affected by things like this but I am much more of a civil libertarian because of it.
*claps*
:-) but good luck convincing everybody else of that. The LP needs to sell their stance in pieces at a time, being staunch and principled when it counts, and moderate at others.
Thank you! You are absolutely correct... The LP's problem is that they sell 1 "Big Libertarian Package" as the solution to everything -- as if free markets are a miracle elixir.
Well, for the most part, free markets *are* close to a miracle elixir,
IMO, Arnold Schwarzenegger is as close to a Libertarian as anybody has ever elected to significant office (Ron Paul aside, although I think Ah-nold actually is more powerful in his position). True, he's not libertarian on gun control and his support of Bush is disheartening, but otherwise, he exhibits some rather libertarian traits.
But Schwarzenegger is not a big-'L' Libertarian. He realizes he cannot sell full drug legalization to voters, so he instead sells marijuana legalization for medicinal purposes. He can't sell privatization of most govn't functions to people, so he sells the easier privatizations first. He attempts to fund the govn't in a relatively low-tax way, e.g. via his $15b bond issue.
Like Ronald Reagan, the CA governor he seems to emulate (but with a deeper streak of social liberalism), Arnold sells to the public a package of strong (but not extreme) fiscal conservatism in the face of "economic girly-men", social tolerance, and sunny Reagan-style optimism.
Personally, I think the Libertarian Party ought to emulate Schwarzenegger if they want to break their current Presidential popular-vote record of 1% (in 1980, with Ed Clark, who eventually founded the Cato Institute). Of course, the LP, being run by Randroids left over from the 1960s when "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" were big hits are still the ones running the show -- and Randroids, of course, don't compromise.
So we're stuck w/ the LP of today until the damn idealistic Randroid old farts leave.
Based on what admittedly-little (not being a CA resident after all) I know of Schwarzenegger, I would *gladly* vote for him for President on either a Republican or Libertarian ticket (of course, this would require a change the Constitution - which is pretty unlikely). If he were running for President today in place of Bush, no doubt in my mind, I would vote for Schwarzenegger, as would many Americans, I believe... but as it stands, I voted Badnarik, and most Americans will likely vote for Bush (the polls appear to be shaping up that way). *sigh*
My *ideal* Presidential candidate would be my favorite moderate libertarian and economic deity, Milton Friedman. But alas, he has no interest in actually running for office, and at his present age of 92, he's really too old now anyway. But Schwarzenegger is, by Arnie's own statements, basically one of the intellectual offspring of Friedman's books ("Free to Choose"). Fortunately, it seems to show too...
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
In 1995, I was peacefully arrested as part of a fur protest. Shortly after the PATRIOT Act was passed, the FBI showed up at my door to ask questions about my friends.
You see... despite the fact that we were part of a peaceful protest, with no group affiliations, the ALF is officially listed as a "domestic terrorist" group, and all animal rights activists must be ALF members, right?
This sort of power scares me. That's clearly stretching the limits.
I have to second that, as I child I always want to go to the USA, see disney land and so on. I got older and realised the Disney trip was probably not going to happen however I still wanted to go there and see the sights, perhaps even study there or get a Utah prostitution license to take home as a souvenir.
But then this crap, I'm an Australian, our country is aparently part of the "Coalition of the willing" yet if I went to America I would have my fingerprints taken and probably my DNA. I know for a fact I would have trouble getting through customs and so on.
My guess is that America will have a tourism downturn in the future, and this crap will be the cause of it.
honest question, what kind of law did you vote on, county or state. If its county or smaller, yes we have that. But I'm doubting its state or nation wide. I know for florida we can't vote on a law directly but we can force it to be looked at and do have a choice for state constitution ammendments. If you did vote for a statewide law, I'd be interested to know where you are from.
Nausea at the retreat from the courage and ideals
that once characterized this nation.
Once we were the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Now we're the land of the secretly-surveiled,
and the home of the anxious-about-safety.
"When the freedom they wished for most
was the freedom from responsibility,
then Athens ceased to be free,
and never was free again."
- Edith Hamilton
Wait a minute. Didn't I say that on the other side of the record? I'd better check
Ring up and report yourself. Make sure you have a lawyer with you or a news crew and see what happens.
Or just randomly report people who you think are terrorists. When they start dragging people away in droves, thats when people will start to feel the outrage.
You obviously dislike america, but you do have some valid complaints. But living in the real world, what country does it better?
You mean like they do with drivers' licenses and gun permits?
Uh, well, at least like they do with drivers' licenses, anyway. If we actually did "register guns like cars," my gun permit would be valid in every state -- but it's not.
It has been drilled into our heads, ever since we were in elementary school, that we live in the greatest country in the world. Maybe people should actually open their eyes, and take a look around. There are plenty of other countries that are just fine. What about Norway? Or Canada? Japan? I am not saying to go and move somewhere else, or that the U.S is the worst place to live, but there are other places. Maybe we should stop believing the bullshit that is pushed into our heads without questioning it.
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices. -Theodor Adorno
All you guys are skipping around the core point.
What business does the federal government have in defining my or your personal life? All these troubles with definitions disappear if the feds simply get out of the "marriage business".
Marriage as I see it, is a very personal and private thing. I really don't see any reason for ANY government to be involved.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Luckily the State cops TOLD you something vauable about the power output of said plant so just in case they were right about you you could have used that intel to wreak havoc in the US.
And that boys and girls is in a nutshel what the fuck is wrong with the PATRIOT act. It's an excuse for penis size challenged law enforcement shitheads to brag to you about how 'in the fucking loop they are' and how important they appear to themselves.
The thing about a police state is not so much the laws, it's the fact that everyone considers themselves YOUR cop. And cops while they do an important and needed service to the community is something we don't need too much of. Think of the people you went to high school with who became cops. Do you want them micromanaging your life?
It's really dishonest of you to try and compare the fiasco we are involved in to WW2.
A valid comparison would have been if Japan bombed us and then we invaded China.
The first country that the US attacked and invaded after Pearl Harbour was Morocco -- a *French* colony that had nothing to do with either the Japanese or the Germans.
Funny, eh?
I have to say that the Patriot Act has effected my life and the lives of my house mates (I live in a 16 person co-op in Southern California) in a very real and devastating way. Last September one of my house mates was detained at gun point and held for 4 days on suspision of an eco-terrorist act. He was accused of setting fire to and vandalizing several hummers and SUV's at local dealerships (though at the time of his arrest and the search of the co-op we did not know this). The afternoon, evening and night after he was detained the co-op was raided. We were not show a warrant until significantly after they had entered the house. Nor were we allowed to watch the search in progress and were forced to wait outside on the other side of the street. When we were finally allowed back into the house at around 4am we found they had taken computers, address books, photos, environmental literature (we never quite figured out what exactly this meant since the co-op has an environmental/sustainable theme, this could have been any number of things) as well as stranger things like rope, dirty underwear and the likes. The house was thrashed. We were finally given everything (we think) back about 2 months after the raid, the vague nature of the receipt and general mess they left things in made it hard to tell what exactly had been taken. One of my house mates slowly spiraled into paranoia and ended up leaving convinced that the rest of us were spying on him. The rest of us have learned how to live with the understanding that the phones and house were/are probably taped. We are left to try to draw the line between reasonable suspision and paranoia, which is not always easy. We later found out that a neighbor called the hot line set up by the Patriot Act to report an increase in activity at the house on the night in question (we had 2 new house mates moving in). The other "evidence" in the affidavit we were able to get ahold of seems equally thin. Apparently being a fairly large group of about a dozen or so 20-somethings-year-olds living together is also suspicious. They also tapped cell phones, staked out the house and followed cars of various house mates. The Joint Terrorist Taskforce was the official umbrella title of the several agencies who showed up that day of the raid. The Patriot Act and trend in the country that this indicates frankly scares me. It's real and it does have an effect on people's lives. It saddens me greatly that Bush won this past election. -Kathe
Stimpy you EEEDIOT!!!
Columbus was a greedy spaniard (PC DISCLAIMER: no offense to you greedy spaniards out there, not that all spaniards are greedy. :-D) and had no idea he had found a new continent. He was looking for a cheaper way to get to the East Indies so that he could profit by selling spices. He then found gold and the greed fed on him. Anyway, to actually correct your "facts", America was named after Americus Vespucius in 1507, a year after Columbus's death (1506).
Just thought I'd clear up a little history that people don't know before it gets rewritten again. :-D